


Shlavweek 2017

by Ahhuya



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-31 06:56:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12126987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ahhuya/pseuds/Ahhuya
Summary: A collection of Tumblr drabbles for ShlavweekDay 1 - Anxiety:  Shiro realizes that hanging out with Slav for too long is affecting his own ability to make decissionsDay 2 - Touch: the Galra are great at making prosthetics, but Shiro knows he has lost more than just an arm by getting itDay 3 - Reality: As long as Slav is around, Shiro knows he’s in a reality where everything turns out fine.Day 4 - Floating: Airlocks aren’t Slav’s favorite thing, but they sure make life a bit more interesting.Day 5 - Brawn: Prisons are meant to keep people in, but team Voltron wans them out (aka Slav is the black paladin and Shiro is a Champion in need of a jail break)





	1. Anxiety

There were 312834 universes where a mission would go wrong, 87% of those resulting in more than just retreating without any other damage. There were too many possibilities on how something could influence their results.

Hanging around Slav for too long didn’t help Shiro… at all. A millimeter too close to a Galra ship could cause Red to be shot out of the sky. There were too many possibilities out there that could be triggered by the slightest mistake. They were things Shiro had never thought about before. They would just fly out, destroy ships, free planets and continue traveling to the next place that needed Voltron’s assistance. It had been normal until Slav showed up. The genius brought more worries with him than Shiro could have expected. Before he realized, he stopped stepping on the cracks on the castle’s floor. He didn’t remember if he had become superstitious over time or if it was just Slav getting into his head.

The number of possibilities in which things could go wrong had always hung around in Shiro’s head before. He knew that much already. The battle had taken the sense of its seriousness away and Shiro only now saw how much it had blinded him. He was flying through space, leading a team of teenagers piloting giant robot lions. That on its own sounded like the recipe for disaster. But somehow, Slav could see the dangers coming for them. Or at least, he knew how to keep damage to a minimum. It was a thing that impressed Shiro highly. Despite the chaos that seemed to radiate of Slav, he  _knew_ what was coming for them… at least most of the time.

The problem was however that Shiro found himself growing dependent. He didn’t know when it had started, but he felt better talking to Slav before a mission started. Slav, always wondering around the castle in order to evade what could hurt him, was usually up for a talk about the many realities that ran through his mind. Talking about the mission always helped calm Shiro’s nerves, the returned feedback and warnings were a bonus he started to appreciate.  

—

“Where’s Slav?” Shiro asked, looking around the room, expecting the alien to run around screaming about the dangers of the warmth of coffee already. It was the morning before another mission to liberate a planet, Seylia. It wouldn’t be a big deal, knowing that the planet had no resources for the Galra empire and therefor wouldn’t be guarded as much as a Balmera or mining camp. In theory, there should be nothing able to stop them from succeeding, they did have the most powerful weapon of the universe on their side after all.

“I dunno.” Lance shrugged his shoulders, “Probably got stuck somewhere in the castle because he doesn’t  want to be stuck in some hopeless reality.”

“Didn’t Allura say he returned to the blade of Marmora for a while?” Pidge said, looking up from her laptop for a moment before she grabbed a spoon of food goo and returned to her project.

“Yeah, something about Kolivan needing him to make another space burrito or something.” Hunk said, carrying three more bowls of food goo to place in front of the paladins.

“I see…” Shiro sighed. Perhaps that was for the best, having some silence around him, think aout his own plans.

“Did you need him for something?” Keith asked.

“It’s nothing important,” Shiro assured him as he moved over to Hunk to get some food, “I just wanted to ask him something, but it can wait.” He didn’t need the assurance of Slav’s theories to lead him through a mission. He had his own team, his own instincts and those had never failed him before.

* * *

 

Shiro wanted to say that he hated Slav’s input on his ideas. No, flying in a straight line would increase the chance of it being one of the 246 realities where one of the lions crashed with 67 percent and had to be evaded at all times. Those things kept flying through his head, irritating but reassuring. It was a risk that Shiro didn’t want to take. He didn’t realize how much he depended on those talks with Slav. He had been able to make decisions just fine,  _knowing_ that his team was professional enough to carry the fate of the universe. So  _why_ did he start to doubt them now? The mission to Seylia had been without any trouble. Shiro knew he was always praised for his “amazing” leadership, a thing he had believed in as well, until now.

Not having Slav around had him fall back on his own decisions. The rest of the team already trusted him on everything, his ideas were barely questions by them, seen as perfect the moment they left his lips. It was normal, Shiro knew that, but after so many battles with barely seeing any progress in the war, he doubted his leadership was worth that much.

—

“How do you always know what is going to happen?” Shiro sighed, leaning on the table as he watched Slav connect multiple wires of a machine which’s purpose had been long lost to Shiro’s mind. Slav had returned from the blade’s headquarters not too long ago, continuing his research in the castle where apparently ‘the quintessence was better and more stable than at the blade’.

Slav looked up, blinked a few times and returned to his work, “If it was really that easy there would be nothing to fear, would there?” He said before he sprinted over to a near computer to work on a code, “There are just possibilities that can keep plaguing you. I’d love to know what was actually going to happen before being stuck in something.”

“So you have no idea what is actually happening.” Shiro asked.

“No,” Slav said, scooting closer and clinging to Shiro’s leg before the man could move away, “they’re highly precise assumptions at first. But once the situation is happening, they’re accurate for sure.”

“I guess the times you nearly let the Teludav explode were some of those assumptions?” Shiro said, smiling softly.

Slav shook his head. “Oh no, those extra dents saved your life at least ten times.”

Shiro couldn’t help but laugh. Perhaps he had been worrying about nothing, lacking sleep a bit too much to have it slip into his mind. At least Slav was still on the sidelines, making sure nothing too serious was going to happen.

Hopefully those explosions around the Teludav had a good impact on the following missions. He needed it.


	2. Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Galra are great at making prosthetics, but Shiro knows he has lost more than just an arm by getting it

The feeling of touch is different with his right hand. Even if the Galra were able to create a perfect prosthetic, they couldn’t simulate the human nerves. Shiro can feel what he was holding or how much pressure he puts on things, but it is nothing more than a soft touch against the cold metal of his hand. He wishes he can say it doesn’t bother him, but it does. It reminds him that he’s no longer human. He’s nothing but a broken soldier who doesn’t know what he’s fighting for. He’s fighting for the universe, at least that’s what he believes. He fights for his family back on earth, but how much is left of that? He has no idea how much time has passed already. He had barely seen earth’s surface when he escaped the Galra and the only people who know he’s alive are with him in space. In the end he fights for his team, the only thing he has left that he knows won’t disappear suddenly or turn its back against him. At least that is what Shiro hopes.

He finds himself sitting in on the bridge too many times. It has the best view of the entire castle, the soft beeping of navigation systems calming his constant anxiety.  He hopes that one of those million spots in his view is a planet that is glad he’s still alive. He sighs at the thought. The sensations of Earth are long lost to him. Even if he could feel it with his left hand, it will never be the same. When he finally came back to earth, the one day he had spent in Keith’s shack, the sand that slipped through his fingers felt fake. The life he had lived on that planet before was gone, destroyed the moment the Garrison had declared him dead. Space on the other hand feels just as surreal but here it is fitting to how Shiro feels. The stars are the only place where he can feel at home, the place where he has lost everything and where the only path for a future is left.

He hears doors open behind him, but doesn’t bother to look like he’s okay. His team knows how he feels, they all are the same. If it is Allura, then she will most likely focus on the navigation of the castle instead of him. Coran has learned to stay silent when one of the paladins is feeling down and Shiro is grateful for that. He doesn’t mind Coran’s constant excitement, but at certain times, he is unable to deal with it.

But it isn’t team Voltron that enters. Instead Shiro sees the wormlike body of Slav darting through the room. Shiro is sure he has only come to restore some systems, not to bother anyone. And he does. The sound of systems beeping stops, becomes worse and falls back to its regular rhythm again. All the time Shiro doesn’t bother to see what Slav is working on. The stars call him instead while he feels his hand form a fist and unfold over and over again.

“Is there something wrong with your hand?” Shiro jumps away when he sees Slav’s face hovering over his arm, inspecting the metal carefully.

“It’s nothing.” Shiro mutters, his left hand folding over the edge of the prosthetic. It’s nothing he isn’t used to already.

“In 98% of all realities that means something is wrong.” Slav continues and Shiro knows there is no way he can escape this conversation now.

“It’s nothing new.” Shiro shakes his head, staring down at his hand that has turned into a fist again, “Just another realization that my connection to my own home is gone if I can’t feel it.”

Slav only nods, his eyes barely leaving the prosthetic, “They never use the good technology on their prisoners…”

Shiro raises an eyebrow, “What do you mean?”

“Those prosthetics,” Slav says, his hands running across the metal while he inspects it. Shiro hates his arms being touched, but for some reason Slav’s touch seems to be delicate. It’s unlike what he expected, knowing how easily Slav lets things blow up, “most of it is just metal, no nerve receptors or anything. Then the ones on the hand palm are of the worst quality, probably got fried the first time you activated it.”

Shiro blinks, then quickly recollects himself, “I’m not getting a new arm. There is no problem with this. Maybe it’s better if I don’t feel with it.” If he couldn’t feel with it, then perhaps he could stay as distant from the battle as he already had. If he couldn’t feel what was happening, then he couldn’t make his problems worse.

“As much as I’d love to make you a new arm, it would be a stupid idea. In 78% of all realities, this Galra arm saves our lives at least 5 times. In 20% even more!” Slav replies, “But you will see how much some new sensors can do.”

Shiro can’t answer him. He find himself sitting back down on the stairs of the bridge with Slav hovering over his arm, pushing it down as he starts to work. Shiro tries to distract himself by watching the stars again. Slav knows how to work with Galra technology and he is familiar with the sensors he’s replacing. Before Shiro knows it, his arm is no longer held down.

“There, that should do it.” Slav says as he looks at the arm, proud of himself.

Shiro slowly moves his hand and has his fingers brush along his palm. There is a tingling sensation, the touch of metal against metal that he can actually  _feel_. He can’t help but to place his hand on Slav’s head as a test, feeling his skin for the first time.

“You’re actually soft.” Shiro laughs. He only now realizes he hasn’t touched Slav with his bare hands before and the thought is amusing to him. “Thank you for doing this. It’s the best I could ask for.”

“No problem,” Slav says and Shiro can see his eyes move over to his left hand. “So… now would you consider that second arm?”

The smile Shiro had earlier sinks again and he lets his hand drop from Slav’s head. He moves his left arm away from Slav and activates his prosthetic to show he’s serious. The weapon still feels the same but when Slav has backed down and he turns the arm off again, he can still feel the cold breeze of the castle against it. He can’t help but feeling glad that Slav is around on the ship.

He might not be entirely human anymore, but he isn’t totally disconnected from his old self.


	3. Reality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As long as Slav is around, Shiro knows he’s in a reality where everything turns out fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm realizing I mostly write Shiro centered semi-angst for this...
> 
> Also a bit shorter because I was having a bad day

Some days it feels as if nothing is real, that all of it is still a dream inflicted by the Galran druids. They know how to trick a man’s mind and Shiro is sure that no one other than his team will believe a story about giant lions flying through space. If the lions aren’t real, then who knows how much of the Galra is a trick of his mind. Maybe he was just slowly dying on Kerberos, his brain giving him one final dream before giving up entirely. Shiro is disappointed he can’t dream of anything better.

Other days, the feeling of reality is unbearable. He watches his team fade before his eyes, their fighting spirit breaking before slowly being mended back together. None of them know how long they have been in space already. All they know is that the possibility of seeing Earth and their families again is getting smaller with every passing day.

Every day Slav is there. As drifting between realities Slav is, he has become an anchor to Shiro. To most, Slav is a bomb of insecurity, rambling about scenarios that are almost never going to happen. To Shiro, Slav is the most security he has had in a long time. Slav knows about the horrors of the Galra in the same way Shiro does. It’s not just the physical war they’re fighting, they have watched their own spirits break under ongoing torture. Slav is the proof that they could make it out of Galra imprisonment and as broken as Slav might seem, he’s as strong as any of them. Slav isn’t out there fighting the Galra up close, but he keeps the castle running, making sure that systems were always being improved.

There are days where Shiro feels himself dragged towards Slav. Those are the ones where he needs assurance and Slav gives him exactly that. In 27% of all universes, Shiro would have never made it to Earth, in 12% he’s too late to save it from a first invasion, in 64%, he would be dead already.  The team calls him stupid sometimes for finding peace in those statistics, but they help him calm down. Seeing how often things could have gone wrong already makes him see the reality he’s facing.

As long as Slav is around, Shiro knows he’s in a reality where everything turns out fine.


	4. Floating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Airlocks aren’t Slav’s favorite thing, but they sure make life a bit more interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was actually thinking about skipping this day because I would have no time to write. But then I wrote this in an hour so even if it isn't great, I'm going to finish this week!

Airlocks are some of the most interesting things that Slav can think of.  He doesn’t know what it is he likes about them. Maybe it’s the hundreds of buttons that capture his interest even if he knows how the scenario of pressing one will end. He won’t say there is fun in feeling himself being blown into space. If anything, he hates that part. No, if those airlocks do anything, they give him a moment where he has no idea what is going on. When the air starts to rush past him and the only thing between him and death is the strength in his hands, clutching to whatever is there to hold, those are the parts where anything can happen. In reality, Slav hates airlocks, but the way their situations tend to turn out is satisfying nonetheless.

Being on _‘Slav duty’_ is a thing far from Shiro’s interests, but he can’t help having lost a game of _‘rock, paper, scissors’_. Someone has to be around to know what is going on with Slav. After the incident of the new Teludav almost blowing up, Coran refuses to have Slav wander around the ship alone. The paladins all have their own jobs to do and Shiro prefers to spend his time by strengthening his team’s bonds and finding new strategies to defeat the Galra. Instead, he has to watch Slav going from one side of the airlock to the other, hitting things that make noise, hitting them harder if the sounds becomes worse. Shiro doesn’t understand how much “fixing” the thing needs, but here he is, watching it happen.  As long as nothing explodes, Shiro can’t be bothered too much by it. He watches Slav as he’s instructed to do, but he can’t wait for the hours to fly by or for Allura to call him for assistance. But he knows that won’t happen. Zarkon is too busy with his own plans and doesn’t seem to even bother with Voltron after his bond with the black lion has gotten worse. Shiro has no other job than the watch Slav work.

Then there is an alarm and it’s not the kind Shiro was hoping for.

_‘Airlock opening in 10 ticks’_

Oh, that’s definitely not the kind of alarm he wants to hear.  The door behind him closes, shutting the two of them off from the rest of the castle. Shiro knows he shouldn’t have let Slav take a look at the airlock. It already screamed disaster on its own. He quickly focuses his eyes on Slav who seems to be frozen in the middle of his work. One of his hands is resting above the ejection button at the side.

Shiro doesn’t know how fast he has to act. Slav only stares at the control panel and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to take action in those 10 ticks they have. Even if a tick is longer than a second, ten of them isn’t enough to get anything done. He wraps an arm around Slav to make sure he won’t fly away if he manages to close the airlock on tick too late. By the time the airlock starts to open, the screen asking him to stop the countdown and close it has finally showed up. They lose gravity for a second before Shiro smashes the button with more force than he wishes. If that broke the airlock, he’s sure he isn’t going to be around on the next ‘Slav duty’ to watch it being fixed.

The airlock closes again and the alarms stop sounding in his ears. Shiro blesses Allura for getting a way to fix this after Lance’s first encounter with an airlock problem. He falls down against the floor, not letting go of Slav as he catches his breath.  When he does, he glares at Slav.

“Just what were you doing?” His voice is low and grumbling, “Do you want to die outside of an airlock?”

Slav doesn’t seem affected by his words. He looks at the airlock and then back to Shiro. “There was no danger,” he says calmly, “because in all realities, you would be there to save me.”

Airlocks aren’t Slav’s favorite thing, but they sure make life a bit more interesting than usual.


	5. Brawn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prisons are meant to keep people in, but team Voltron wans them out (aka Slav is the black paladin and Shiro is a Champion in need of a jail break)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is without doubt the worst thing I've written in a while and I would write more of it if I had time...  
> Just don't let me write out the ideas I go to bed with/wake up to

 

Beta Traz carried a lot of security with it and all of that for only one person. Whatever was so special about this  _Champion_ , it was enough for the blade of Marmora to need him. Team Voltron would be the only one able to carry out a mission to get some kind of Galran superweapon out of prison. And that it had to be Team Voltron was what worried Pidge the most. They were fine with fighting battles, at least as fine as they could get. Rescue missions on the other hand were far from ideal. With Keith and Hunk away to find a Weblum and Allura gaining a new crystal, there was no other way than to take the black paladin with them on the mission.

“This could go wrong in to many ways.” Pidge sighed, listening to the voice of the black paladin through the comms. Slav was a genius and if there was any lion he should be piloting, it was Green. Whatever Black saw in him, Pidge didn’t know. When it came to making decisions, Slav had to be the worst, depending too much on Keith’s second opinions. Sure Slav knew how to fight, there were too many occasions where she wished she didn’t know about that fact. There was enough that a few extra arms and a wormlike body could do.

They had barely started the mission, only barely done breaking into the facility to let the blue lion in. It was a matter of perfect planning, a thing they could trust Slav with. With the blue lion docked, the team had split up to find their Champion. The finding of two heat signatures in two different cells had thrown their original strategy off, leaving Lance and Slav on their own to each identify one of the signals.

“The Blade wants this guy and we will need him to defeat Zarkon. ” Pidge answered her leader, already fearing that Slav’s endless doom scenarios were going to ruin their mission in some way.

“How do we even know what this Champion guy looks like?” That was Lance.

Pidge sighed, “We don’t. We should keep the possibility of him being Galra as the most likely if he has ties to the Blade and is held in high regard by the empire.”

“Do we even know if he wants to be saved? What if he’s some vicious beast?” Great… now Lance was panicking as well. Pidge already disliked the mission, the only good thing being the access to prisoner files to find her family.

“Look,” she said, hating that she had to take more of a leader position their initial leader did in this situation, “we don’t know who the Champion is or in what kind of state we’ll find him. All we know is that the Blade knows he can help us and that should be enough to believe that he wants to be rescued.”

The comms broke up again, only to be opened when Slav or Lance lost their way across the endless hallways.

* * *

Being a paladin of Voltron was supposed to be a job one wouldn’t say no to. Especially the part of black lion was one several people would want to die for. Slav was not one of those people. Piloting the black lion meant that people were most likely to come after him. Go for the leader first, a perfect strategy. Of all the realities where he was going to die a painful death, this one had to be the most cursed one. Sure, he had a great team, nice kids no doubt and of course the black lion reassured him of his position many times. Saving the universe was a job that Slav wasn’t interested in. What did interest him was the millennia old technology that flew through space right before his eyes and the possibilities there were of improving it.

Galra hallways always looked the same. Dark gray walls, accompanied with purple and green lights, kept filling his vision. What the Galra called ‘high security’ was nothing more than a joke. Sentries were nothing more than mindless robots, easy to take out or hack in to. Their best attempt at security were the cracks in the floor and the dripping water from the ceiling. He hated those, probably proofing more danger than piloting the black lion did.

The hallways of the prison were endless, but there was only as much as one locked door. Facial recognition, Lance mentioned before Slav got the chance to. It didn’t matter anyways. Lance would try to get a scan of the warden’s face while Slav found himself at the lock, trying to hack his way in. Either that would work or Lance would show up with the needed face scan.

He didn’t have to wait for the blue paladin to be done. A few ticks before enthusiastic screaming came over the comms, the door to the cell slid open.

“Oh no…” Slav whispered with the first view of the room.

“What’s wrong? Is there extra security? Were you found out?” Pidge’s voice panicked over the comms.

“He has white hair. People with white hair die in 99% of all realities, with a prison break their chances are even worse.”

“Well, the blade of Marmora wants the Champion badly, so we better not get him killed here. Take care of that, Slav.”

“Of course, leave the hopeless reality to me.” The black paladin sighed as he stepped further into the room, trembling at the sight of the Galran’s worst weapon.

* * *

The name Champion was one he had become too familiar with. Even outside the arena, the Galra couldn’t stop calling him that. The other prisoners and gladiators had spat on him with that name, making it sound like a curse to anyone who got captured. The druids and Zarkon used the name in a loving manner, one that made him feel sick. There was no honor the title Champion, no pride in the hundreds of lives he had taken. Being stuck in a solitary confinement wasn’t better than the arena, but there was no more killing. Sure, there were the random visits of Zarkon’s witch and the experiments she would conduct. She needed him, he knew that. She wanted him alive for her  _Operation Kuron,_ whatever that meant.

There was something wrong when the doors to his cell started to open without warning. It wasn’t time for food and the witch had visited only a few days ago. It left him with no ideas on why someone would come for him.

Then there was a voice, a man probably communicating with someone outside the room.  _“He has white hair. People with white hair die in 99% of all realities, with a prison break their chances are even worse.”_ He frowned, no doubt that was about him.

He clutched his right arm, hating that the limb was made immovable by a metal clamp. After multiple times of tearing it off with force, the Galra had learned to make the device stronger and weaken their champion more, keeping him in place during his imprisonment.

The creature in the opening of the door however was in no way Galra. There was a white with black armor that greeted him. Inside the suit, a worm like alien, reminding him of one of his old cellmates. He doubted there was a connection with that though, that alien was long gone for sure. No one survived the arena for more than a few matches.

“Are you the Champion?” The creature asked.

He nodded, as he took a defensive stance. They weren’t allied with the Galran empire, that meant that they either came here to kill him or-

“Good, then let’s get out of here before our chances become even worse.”

“Who are you?” The Champion hissed, taking a step back until he felt a wall in his back.

“Oh great, he doesn’t know about us…” Shiro could hear the flow of sarcasm slipping through the creature’s words. “We’re from Voltron if that says anything to you.” He shook his head quickly, “Look we don’t have time for this… Those lucky blue terahertz aren’t going to be on our side forever. We need to leave before they find us.”

“You’re here to help me escape?” Shiro asked.

“Isn’t that clear?”

He was silent for a moment. The Galra would do anything to keep him in their clutches and the witch would be beyond reason if he escaped. He would love to see her face in that moment, even if the thought itself brought shivers along his spine.

“You know the Galra will do anything to get me back, right? Their witch will do everything she can to keep me here.” How did he even know if he could trust the first stranger to run into his room, screaming about a prison break. Maybe it was only an illusion. If it was, he had to be able to fight back before things went wrong.

“Which is exactly why  _we_ want you.” The alien looked at him, his eyes fixating on the clamp on the prosthetic arm. “We need to get rid of that first.”

He moved over and within seconds the metal clamp fell on the ground.

“Thank you.” Shiro said, able to move his arm for the first time in ages. The power that ran through it was an old friend, one he knew he could trust even if it was the part that connected him to his worst nightmares.

“We need to go now, Champion.”

“It’s Shiro.” He was no longer Champion, not if rescue from the Galra empire was finally here. He felt his introduction go unnoticed when his savior was no longer walking towards the door, instead occupied by the blanket on Shiro’s bed.

“Weren’t we… going to escape?” Shiro asked, watching as the blanket was folded and repositioned over and over again.

“We need the blanket to increase our chances of survival. You-” He pointed at Shiro, “have the worst survival rate of all of us.”

Shiro could feel his blood boiling, eyebrow twitching as he watched Slav do anything but escape. “I don’t care about survival rates. I have stuck here for who knows how long and I don’t believe that one blanket is going to change anything!”

With the raising of his voice, the blanket fell back down on the bed again, leaving the black paladin with a sour look. “Oh no… Now I have to start over.”

“I’m done…” Shiro muttered as he turned his back to the paladin. He had his arm back, the metal glowing a soft purple when he wanted it. He could get out on his own just fine, he didn’t need more rescue.

...

The problem was that he  _did_ need rescue. The sight of the hallways was terrifying and even if the sight of anything Galra wasn’t bad enough on its own, he had no idea how to get out. He could try running around the place in the hope of finding an escape pod, but if he couldn’t, this one chance was for nothing. He couldn’t risk it, even if it meant having to rely on a weird alien who loved to fold blankets.

Shiro hated waiting, the longer he had to wait the closer he got to death. He had waited too long in too many situations. Waiting meant there was another enemy who didn’t like sitting still, one who needed to be controlled before going into the arena. With waiting, time seemed to go slower and with every ‘not like this’ coming from the blanket, it seemed to only become worse.

When it was finally over, and the other had left the blanket alone, claiming it had increased their survival with at least 2 percent, Shiro was ready to finally leave the cell alone. He couldn’t take it when they stopped again when they were around the corner.

“We can’t go there!” Slav jumped aside, leaving the champion on his own in the middle of the hall.

“Why not!?” Shiro yelled, his voice echoing through the halls.

Slav pointed at the ceiling where drops of water were falling down.

“We could drown.” He said, seeing how a small puddle started to form on the floor.

“I can’t believe you…” Shiro sighed and shook his head. “It’s a puddle of water, it’s nothing like what the Galra can do and you’re afraid you’re going to drown in  _that._ ”

“There are so many universes where I didn’t learn how to swim.”

“I’m sure you’d love to find out if this is one of those.” The human grumbled, crossing his arms before glaring at Slav. He didn’t even want to bother with the fact of how his savior had come to his prison with the puddle being there before already. “I have been stuck here for a long time. If you’re going to rescue me, then do so. I can escape of this place on my own just fine.”

He didn’t get a moment to think things over. The moment he took a step forward, he saw Slav’s body move from beside him, quickly surrounding him before he was wrapped around his shoulders.

“If this is your way of making sure I’m not going anywhere, you’re wrong.” Shiro grumbled.

“Oh no, it is already clear this is a reality where you can’t leave me behind.” The paladin replied.

The Champion sighed, knowing that his rescuer was right, he couldn’t let a chance like this slip away, not with his arm working again. “Fine, so how do we get out of here.”

He watched the paladin talk into his helmet, voices of teammates sounding from the other side. There was no need to listen to possibilities of realities, there were no such things after the time in the arena. The only two possibilities there were life and death, the way of achieving victory didn’t matter and barely filled his mind.

…

Security was less tight than he remembered it being. Then again, that might have also been because he had his arm back. It was much easier to take a sentry out with a glowing alien arm than an immovable piece of metal. On the other hand, who would guard a retired gladiator? Just because he didn’t die in the arena, didn’t mean he was of use to the empire. Not that he knew at least. But the witch had loved him and he was sure he was only here for her entertainment. The visits became less and less frequent, making him wonder if the empire was finally falling apart.  

In the time of walking through the hallways, Shiro tried to start conversation with his savior. It didn’t get far, but he could learn enough. The alien was named Slav, apparently he piloted a big flying lion and freed planets. Most importantly, he had connections with the Blade of Marmora. They were only a small fragment of his wrapped memories. Ulaz had been there, he had wanted to escape, return to earth that day. Sadly that plan had been a failure, his escape pod returned to Zarkon’s ship before he could even see Earth’s oceans again. It had been a stupid idea to escape. It hadn’t helped him. Sure, he was no longer in the arena, but being taken to an isolated facility with only the warden, the witch’s experiments and his own mind to play with him was definitely worse. He didn’t even know if Ulaz was still alive and in all honesty, he was afraid to ask.

Eventually came the alarms and with it the realization that the warden had found out he was missing from his cell. It was a moment of fear, one where he didn’t know what to do, fearing the return of the gladiator fights. Alarms brought more sentries and more sentries were more trouble. Slav had left his shoulders alone, giving him at least some movement back. Shiro would love to say that he could handle the fighting, but he couldn’t. His arm could only do so much and the time off from the arena caught up to him pretty fast. He didn’t realize the sentries were coming at him. Not until a blast flew past his face, hitting one of the sentries that had been charging at him.

“ _This_ is what I mean by bad survival rates.” Slav sighed as he lowered the gun that he held in his hands.

“Thank you,” Shiro said, watching Slav move around to take out more sentries while he got himself together again. Slav was probably right, he was only dragging them down, ruining the small chances they had for escape.

“The exit is only a few turns away, we should meet up with the blue paladin there.” Slav said.

With every step they took, Shiro could feel part of his anxiety fall off. They were close to the exit, there were others out there waiting for him. This wasn’t Zarkon’s  ship, their only problem was the warden, but he would be more interested in the wellbeing of his pet than his emperor’s experiment.

The thought was calming until he saw Laika’s face appear next to him. On the back of the animal sat a man, wearing the same armor as Slav except in blue.

“Slav! There you are!” The man, no looking closer Shiro could see he a teen, a  _human_ teen on top of that. Apparently the teen noticed the human features of their objective as well.

“You didn’t say your Champion was human?” The blue paladin yelled. After a moment of staring, his mouth fell open, “ _or_ that he’s  **Shiro**!”

“Your team is  _human_? Why did you not tell me?” The champion snapped. If they had a team of humans, there was a chance that Matt and Samuel had been found, that he could go home, that he would no longer be a part of this horrible war and earth would have been warned about the upcoming dangers.

“Knowing Slav, he probably got distracted by alternate realities and forgot to tell you. Or he doesn’t care enough about us.” The blue paladin said, shrugging his shoulders. “Still I can’t believe THE Shiro is on our team now. I’m Lance, you’re my hero! I can’t believe this!”

“I think the middle of a space prison is the worst place to get to know each other.” Shiro laughed softly, surprised by Lance’s enthusiasm.

“True,” Lance laughed before he focused on his comms, “Pidge, we got the Champion. It’s Shiro, can you believe that!? We’re going back to Blue right now, we’ll meet up there.”

“Also,” Shiro said, looking at the creature Lance was riding on again, “why did you free the warden’s pet, Laika?”

Lance looked down at the animal, his mouth falling open when he realized his mistake.  “You’re an animal!?”

Laika let out an enthusiastic ‘yup’ before sprinting further into the hall.

Even if he knew that Laika was going to bring them trouble, Shiro couldn’t help but to finally feel save again. He was going to be reunited with humans and even if the war was still going on, he’d have a place to call home again. He could never be more thankful to the black paladin for returning that to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm doing art for day 6 so unless I get inspiration for day 7, this is the final fic

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if I will be able to get all days done, but I will post the ones I get done here!
> 
> Come talk to me on Tumblr @aulra


End file.
